Windows XP To Be Phased Out By Year's End

[Osiris]

Computer makers have been told they'll no longer be able to get Windows XP OEM by the end of this year, despite consumer resistance to Vista and its compatibility problems.

By early 2008, Microsoft's contracts with computer makers will require companies to only sell Vista-loaded machines. "The OEM version of XP Professional goes next January," said Frank Luburic, senior ThinkPad product manager for Lenovo. "At that point, they'll have no choice."

Despite Microsoft's relentless promotion of Vista, manufacturers are still seeing plenty of demand from customers for systems preloaded with XP, especially in the finicky SOHO market.

There's general agreement amongst PC resellers that Vista has provided a minor boost to PC sales, but hasn't produced blockbuster numbers. A similar story applies in the retail space. Figures from marketing consultancy GfK suggest that after an initial sales surge, around 1500 copies of Vista are now being sold through Australian retailers each week, according to a recent report in the AFR.

News Source: APC Mag

 

[mssssee2]

I think that microsoft should debug many vista errors and then sale it to the market, and also Microsoft should consider that most consumers are a bit xenophobic to new products, so it should have done this from the first month of the retail of vista OS. Furthermore microsoft should not exaggerate with the retail prices. Cause no man would purchase something so expensive when there are many other OS much cheaper than this one such as previous versions of windows. Another thing Microsoft should do is to icrease with an ample way the price of Windows xp. And when the numbers of the increase sound impresive, Microsoft would have the justification that it's stuff is dedicated to the newer windows (vista), so there will be insufficiency and huge increase of the retail price of older windows versions.

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Mike from Greece, 14

 

[superdave1984]

I wonder how many people are buying new computers that have Vista, then blowing it out and installing XP? Microsoft gets paid twice then. And the Vista numbers get inflated even though it isn't being used.

 

[mssssee2]

I wonder how many people are buying new computers that have Vista, then blowing it out and installing XP? Microsoft gets paid twice then. And the Vista numbers get inflated even though it isn't being used.

Why microsoft don't offer free the xp when buying vista? That would be a more lucrative way of commercing it's products.

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Mike from Greece, 14